LexisNexis is Giving $250,000 in Free ‘Firm Manager’ Subscriptions to Small Firms

ANOTHER UPDATE: According to a representative of LexisNexis, the free offer described below has NOT been rescinded, as stated in my last update. Rather, it has been expanded to all solo and small-firm attorneys — not just those who belong to the GP Solo section. The offer is still limited to the first 600 firms that sign up, and the size limits described in my post below still apply (no more than three attorneys and no more than five total subscriptions per firm, including support staff).

IMPORTANT UPDATE on 10/4/13 at 1:36 p.m.: I’ve just returned to my office to find a flurry of emails and phone messages about this post. There was confusion about this because some readers thought it suggested that the ABA has somehow officially endorsed the LexisNexis offer, which it had not. Sarah Mui explains it this was at the ABA Journal:

The LexisNexis offer of six free months of their Firm Manager platform has been rescinded at the request of the ABA and its GP Solo section. The LexisNexis offer, described at Robert Ambrogi’s Lawsites, was not authorized by the ABA or any of its sections, and LexisNexis agreed to remove details of the offer from its website. In an email to the ABA general counsel’s office, a LexisNexis representative described the situation as a “misunderstanding,” and that the company had proceeded with the offer with the belief that it had been authorized by the section.

Meanwhile, I received a “take down notice” from the ABA general counsel’s office stating:

LexisNexis has agreed to take down the promotion.

The ABA asks you to remove the above referenced link and any other site where this promotion is referenced. The promotion’s reference to the ABA GP Solo Conference and the registration URL’s inclusion of “gpsolo” creates the false and misleading impression that this is an ABA sponsored promotion. It is not. Please remove the posting above and any other references to this promotion immediately and send me a confirmation of the removal.

Ironically, I never assumed the ABA had endorsed this in any official way. I simply took the news to mean that Lexis was extending this offer to GPSolo members in conjunction with the GPSolo conference.

I am confused about this because the promotion page is still up on the LexisNexis site. I have calls in to Lexis staff for clarification. In the meanwhile, you can now ignore what I originally wrote below about the free offer.

Starting today, the first 600 GPSolo members who sign up for the offer will get six months of free access to Firm Manager for themselves and their firms, starting Jan. 1. Only lawyers who are not currently Firm Manager subscribers are eligible. Also, the offer is good only for firms of 1-3 lawyers, although two staff members can also be included, for a total of five users from a firm. LexisNexis says that the value of this is $270-$990, depending on the size of the firm, and that the total value will be roughly $250,000.

LexisNexis recently unveiled a major overhaul of the Firm Manager platform and is currently offering the new version, still in beta, for free through Dec. 31, 2013. Starting Jan. 1, the subscription price will be $44.99 per month for the first user and $29.99 for each additional user. For GPSolo members who accept this offer before Jan. 1, the current free-trial period will not subtract from the six-month offer, meaning the total period of free usage could be nine months if they start today.

Also today, LexisNexis announced other news pertaining to Firm Manager:

Starting soon, Firm Manager subscribers will be able to obtain other technology products at discounted prices, including Microsoft Office 365 and WatchDox. It expects to announce other deals soon.

Invoicing will be added to Firm Manager by mid-October.

Trust accounting and Outlook integration are slated to be added to Firm Manager in January.

The product manager for Firm Manager, Christopher T. Anderson, is himself a former small-firm lawyer. He said that LexisNexis is giving away these subscriptions “as an opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to, and our investment in, solving the problems of solos and small law firms.”

Of course, it’s not a bad business move, either, but you can’t blame them for that.